On aluminum honeycomb impact attenuator designs for formula student competitions

Abstract

The use of impact attenuators (IA) is important for vehicles as they absorb the kinetic energy exerted from the car crashes to protect the drivers from any possible injuries. Under the framework of the Formula Student (FS) competition, we investigate various designs of IA made of aluminum honeycomb material. Specifically, the crushing behavior of the honeycomb structure is investigated from the theoretical point of view and later verified with numerical simulations. To achieve the desired crushing behavior of the aluminum honeycomb structure, apart from the so-called pre-crushing method, another way to pre-process the aluminum honeycomb is proposed. Modification on the aluminum honeycomb is done in a symmetric manner to ensure the same uniform crushing behavior on the two sides of the mirror plane of the car. Different variations presented in this paper shed a light on future aluminum honeycomb IA designs in the context of FS competitions.